Francesca CavallaroAcademic

Biography

Dr Francesca Cavallaro is a Senior Analytical Manager at the Health Foundation, an independent charity working to improve health and health care in the UK. She joined the Health Foundation in January 2022, having previously served as a Senior Research Fellow at the UCL Institute of Child Health, where she evaluated the Family Nurse Partnership programme using linked NHS, education, and social care data. Her background is in maternal and child health epidemiology, and her expertise spans the analysis of complex administrative data, data linkage, and the evaluation of health care interventions. She leads the Health Foundation's programme of work on NHS performance, including elective and emergency care, and is regularly quoted in the press commenting on waiting times and system pressures. She completed her PhD on the unmet need for caesarean sections at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

References

1. 1.Dr Francesca Cavallaro – The Health Foundation staff profile — Role title, organisation, career history, academic background, and research focus
2. 2.Government's NHS waiting times pledge hangs in the balance despite signs of progress – Health Foundation press release — Press quotes establishing her as spokesperson on NHS elective waiting times and 18-week standard analysis
3. 3.Health Foundation responds to latest NHS monthly performance statistics – press release (October 2025) — Further press quotes on NHS performance and elective backlog, confirming Senior Analytical Manager title
4. 4.Waiting List Conference 2026: From Backlog to Breakthrough – HDR UK — Confirms her programme leadership on NHS performance and her role presenting waiting list projections at a named public event (2026)

Expertise

Cited on

• Hospital discharge / bed-blocking

Stated areas of expertise

• NHS elective waiting times
• Health system performance monitoring
• Administrative data linkage
• Maternal and child health epidemiology
• Emergency and urgent care
• Health inequalities

Notable achievements

• Led Health Foundation analysis projecting the government would fall just short of its 18-week elective care standard pledge by the end of parliament, widely cited in UK press coverage in 2025. Source ↗
• Co-authored analysis 'Progress – but is it enough? What the latest NHS waiting times mean for elective recovery' (May 2026), assessing trust-level performance against government interim targets. Source ↗
• Presented updated NHS waiting list projections at the HDR UK Waiting List Conference 2026: From Backlog to Breakthrough. Source ↗
• Published peer-reviewed research on caesarean section provision and readiness in Tanzania in BMJ Open (2018). Source ↗

What they’ve said

• “These pressures expose the NHS's fragile balancing act. The government's recent budget provided no additional funding to help services maintain essential services and meet stretching performance targets, even as demands continue to rise.”

  senior analytical manager at the Health Foundation · Hospital discharge / bed-blocking · 27 Aug 2026 · NHS ‘facing worst-case scenario’ as hospital flu cases jump 55% in a week ↗

• “Winter has already begun but the NHS is already under intense strain, with an unprecedented surge in flu cases for the time of year. The mounting pressures are compounded by the rising number of patients stranded in hospital beds despite being medically fit to be discharged compared with last year.”

  Senior Analytical Manager at the Health Foundation · Hospital discharge / bed-blocking · 27 Aug 2026 · Hospitals in England ‘face dangerous winter overcrowding due to discharge delays’ ↗

Source references

1. NHS ‘facing worst-case scenario’ as hospital flu cases jump 55% in a weektheguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026
2. Hospitals in England ‘face dangerous winter overcrowding due to discharge delays’theguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026

Contact & links

• Staff pagehttps://www.health.org.uk/about-the-health-foundation/our-people/dr-francesca-cavallaro
• LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/francescacavallaro/
• Press office emailmediaoffice@health.org.ukpublished here ↗
• Press office phone020 7664 4647published here ↗

Organisational contact points only, each taken from a page the organisation publishes itself. No personal or direct contact details are held or shown.